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Out of Uranus, our fate was sealed and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it.

The search for extraterrestrial life had reached its peak in the early 3000’s when scientists invented a teleporting device powerful enough to project human beings onto other planets. By recreating the Big Bang in a contained environment, Man discovered the source of life: the first cell, which scientists called “The Seed”. It is this Seed which paved the way for the creation of the Explorium, a gate capable of allowing a person to travel to distant lands without the need for a spacecraft.

Some planets proved problematic: Mercury was hot, Mars was boring, the Moon wasn’t a planet.

Dr Fredrick Thomson led the expedition to Uranus, assembling a team of capable astronauts and explorers with the common goal of unlocking the mysteries of the ice planet once and for all. Among them was Sharon Lang, an expert on Uranus, playboy astro-physicist John Tucker and decorated space traveller Rick Kirkstrom.

The team would enter Uranus and bring back samples.

Who knew that such a simple mission could go so wrong?

It was a Sunday morning, Dr Thomson had assembled the departing trio in his office for a final meeting before sending them through the Explorium.

“Thank you for coming.”, he said in a welcoming tone, “I’m sure you all can’t wait to get going!”

“I went to the bathroom, so I’m happy now!”, John replied confidently.

After an awkward silence, Dr Thomson continued.

“This mission should be straight-forward but nothing is straight-forward with science. I wanted you all to keep that in mind, when you’re out there. While we have been fortunate enough to learn a lot about other worlds, we have never penetrated Uranus and there is very little we know about it.”

“There is nothing to be worried about. I simply urge you, all of you, to stay focused on the mission at hand. Distraction is dangerous, in space.”

Rick and Sharon share a slightly puzzled look as John picks his nose.

Shortly after the ominous meeting, the team were standing next to the Explorium in their full space gear facing the leader of the United States who, in the spirit of an impromtu photo op, had agreed to wish the crew well on their adventure.

“Have a beautiful time up there, folks. And I mean that, I really do. I got a lot of astronaut friends, a LOT of astronaut friends, believe me. I know astronauts. Nobody knows astronauts better than me. You guys are great. Have a great time up there. I mean that.”, was President Frump Jr.’s obligatory speech.

“This is it: you are about to be the first people to step inside Uranus. Make us proud and be careful.”, he said.

After a countdown, the Explorium was turned on and the crew was soon walking through the pink, jelly-like portal.

If only they had known…

Sharon was the first to walk on Uranus, the others soon followed.

“It’s cold over here, what the fuck?”, John said.

“John, do you realise that those are now the first words ever spoken in Uranus?”, Sharon responded with a cold stare.

“What’s your problem?”

Sharon shakes her head and keeps walking.

Around the explorers, nothing but ice, wind and fog. White hills and mountains on the horizon and, in front of them, a blank canvas. The sky was electric blue with a slight greenish shade.

“We have reached Uranus, over.”, Sharon spoke into her receiver.

The response was a broken buzzing, no discernible word.

“God damn it.”, she complained.

“What’s wrong?”, Rick asked.

“Audio’s out. I can’t hear a thing from back home.”

“Maybe they’re busy and shit.”, John remarked.

Ignoring John’s last comment, Sharon and Rick keep on walking through the slippery, violently cold environment. Eventually, they come to a large puddle. A thick brown liquid is oozing out of a circular cracked hole.

“Let’s take a sample and get the hell out of here.”, Sharon decided, “I don’t like this one bit.”

Sharon hands John a small vile.

“We need some of that mud: go get it.”

“Why me? I’m an astro-physhism!”, John complained.

“Your father’s an astro-physicist, you’re a rich kid with shit for brains. Now go get the mud before I tell everyone you shit your pants yesterday in the cafeteria.”

“Yes ma’am.”, a beaten John replied, picking up the vile.

As John approaches the puddle, Rick starts filming the surroundings with a small camera and Sharon gets on one knee to examine the frozen ground. Suddenly, she sees something move under the ice.

Startled, she stands back up.

“Rick!”

“What is it?”

“I… saw something.”

Sharon then tries to contact Earth again.

“Come in Houston, come in Houston. This is Sharon Lang. I have encountered a life form. We are coming back now, over.”

She turns back to Rick.

“We gotta go.”

“What about John?”

“Oh right…”

She turns to the puddle but John is nowhere to be seen.

“John…?”, she whispers.

Without warning, the ice breaks underneath her and she crashes through the ground screaming. Rick starts to run towards her.

“Sharon!”, he yells.

Noticing the cracks on the ice, Rick stops running and takes a few steps back. He stands there for a while, silently, not knowing what to do. The only sound is now Rick’s heavy breathing and the wind around him.

“Sharon…”, Rick says under his breath, with a lump in his throat.

The ground starts to shake.

The puddle bubbles.

“My god…”

Brown liquid promptly shoots out of the puddle like a geyser. Rick watches, in shock, as the mud falls back down turning a lot of the ground and the astronaut himself brown.

“Come in Houston… come in Houston…”, he mutters into his microphone, terrified.

Once again, faint static is the response.

Out of the puddle a sphere slowly pushes through: it stays floating in mid-air above the hole for a moment before flying towards Rick.

Rick starts to run back towards the portal and the brown sphere follows unhurriedly. Rick runs faster and faster, slipping and sliding on the ice.

“Come in Houston! Request assistance right now! I am being pursued by a… an unknown life form!”, he speaks into his mic in a panicked tone, out of breath.

Nearing the portal, Rick eventually slips and falls on his front, cracking his helmet a little in the process. The sphere quietly picks up pace. Noticing this, Rick stand with great difficulty and starts to run again. He soon realises the sphere is about to catch up to him and he runs faster than ever before, dropping his camera to allow himself more room.

He finally leaps into the portal and lands back safely on Earth.

On the laboratory side of the portal, Dr Thomson leaves his seat and runs up to Rick.

“Oh no…”, he says to himself, concerned.

A few other men run to Rick and help him sit up, Dr Thomson tries to see who is inside the suit as the helmet is cracked and covered in frost.

“Who is this? John? Is that you?”, he said, “Where are the others?”

Not getting an answer, he signals to one of the men to remove the helmet. The obstruction is quickly disposed of and a hyperventilating, pale Rick is revealed: his hair has turned white.

The brown liquid splashes over the people, the walls, the floors, the ceiling as a thick smoke and a foul stench fills the entire room. Those who didn’t pass out are either coughing or holding a handkerchief to their mouths.

Two glowing silhouettes appear in the middle of the room.

The smoke finally clears to reveal two young bald women, fully naked. Everyone looks up, without saying a word. The women scan the room quietly, intensely.

You could hear a pin drop, at this point.

Without warning, one of the women speaks in a strange accent.

“We are Uranus.”

There’s a beat.

The other woman opens her mouth: countless brown bubbles fly out.

The bubbles stick themselves onto the bodies of everyone in the room, turning every individual into a large brown sphere.

Rick picks up his helmet and quickly walks up to the main control panel.

“What are you doing?”, Dr Thomson asks with desperation in his eyes.

“I’m ending this.”

Rick activates the Explorium before slamming the control panel with his helmet over and over again. Dr Thomson attempts to stop him.

“You fool! You’ll kill us all!”

“We’re already dead, doc. Look around!”

The control panel short circuits and the Explorium partly bursts out of the magnetic field holding it together: it is now a vortex sucking everyone into it. Rick and Dr Thomson grab onto the edge of the control panel as the people around them, some of them brown bubbles, start flying into the pink, fleshy spiral. The two women struggle to remain standing and they are soon sucked in also along with all their loose bubbles.

“I can’t hold on for much longer, Rick!”, Dr Thomson yells out.

Rick tries to move along the control panel in order to reach the wiring going up to the generator. With his right hand, he goes to pull one of the wires but his other hand slips. Luckily, he manages to hold onto the wiring, which he starts to dismantle.

“Help… me!”

Dr Thomson loses his grip and starts to fly into the portal just as Rick successfully turns off the power. The Explorium and its vortex disappear. Rick falls to the ground and turns around: he sees only the bottom half of Dr Thomson’s body wiggling around in a bloody mess.

Rick takes a deep breath, stands up and leaves the empty room.

He walks around the corridors of the building aimlessly, as if in a dream. He looks around the rooms and finds no-one, had they been sucked in as well?

Wanting to get some air, maybe smoke a well deserved cigarette, Rick exits the building. He is surprised to find completely lifeless surroundings, with nobody in sight. Cars have their doors open but no drivers or passengers.

When young Edelweiss awoke on the first Tuesday of February, she had no idea that this day would change her deeply, forever.

Number 85, her mother-droid, had just finished making grey berry pancakes and had called her down for breakfast.

“Today. Is. Now.”, 85 announced.

Floating out of her silky pebble bed sheets, Edelweiss slowly made her way down the rocky stairs and into the gravel kitchen, her long, flowing white hair glistening softly in the low gravity like a sea nymph coming home for Christmas.

“85: give me syrup.”, she said.

85’s mouth opened, liquid flew out.

“85: stop syrup.”

85’s mouth closed, the syrup stopped.

Just as Edelweiss was about to take her first bite of 85’s pancakes, the Magenta Siren rang. It rang all over the house, all over the city, all over M.

They had returned.

They were the Magicians: strange beings from another world, from the skies, come to Planet M, no doubt, to enslave its people. That was the general belief, anyway. 6 years prior, a Magician ship crash-landed, its crew was lifeless, dead, but judging from the amount of artillery and technologically advanced death machines they had brought with them, their intentions seemed clear: destroy and colonize.

This time, the M-ians were ready.

On Planet M, different sirens meant different things: Cyan meant “GOOD”, Gold meant “HIDE” and Magenta meant “GATHER”. “Gather” called all the M-ians to rally together at a specific point on the planet surface and expunge a foreign, potentially harmful entity together.

The Magenta Siren had never rang.

The last time the Magicians had landed, they weren’t perceived to be a threat at first so Cyan rang. The M-ians hid on the other side of the globe and waited for further instructions. It was only later, when it was deemed safe to inspect the crashed ship that those instruments of death were found.

Edelweiss was almost there.

She was nervous but ready, whatever danger lay ahead, she would tackle it with all the might of a thousand Suns.

When she arrived at the meeting point, she saw nothing except her people and rows upon rows of father-droids, all aligned around a single vacant point.

Could this have been a false alarm?

Just then, she saw it: the enemy ship.

It was small, shiny and it was landing.

“Activate. Cloaking. Device.”, said the largest and most silver of all the father-droids.

All droids suddenly opened their mouths as transparent beams of transparent light blasted out converging into one single point high up but still far below the Magician ship. The cloaking device was a precautionary measure. As long as there was still a chance that the imminent threat at hand could turn out to be benign, the attack would wait.

Any sign of a weapon of any kind, on the Magicians’ side, would, of course, suggest antagonism and prompt instantaneous retaliation.

“Charge. Eye. Beams.”. the droid leader commanded.

Edelweiss and her M-ian brothers and sisters therefore began charging their eyeballs with pure energy. A simple blow from all these eye beams at the same time would annihilate any foreign object. The cloaking device had made the M-ians and their droids invisible to the Magicians.

Now there was only waiting.

The ship was close, very close, even closer now.

Edelweiss’ eyes were starting to hurt.

It landed.

What felt like an eternity passed by before the doors of the ship shooed open. The first Magician to exit looked nothing like those before him: bulky, white, round.

It was like an oversized child.

Words were heard, in a strange language, but they were too faint for anyone to hear. No sign of a weapon as yet. They were floating but not like the M-ians, their steps were clumsy and pathetic.

Were these Magicians children?

Underdeveloped versions of their predecessors?

Or had their predecessors, in fact, travelled back through time from their own future?

After all, the original ship had looked much more advanced than this one which, come to think of it, certainly had a much more primitive, fragile structure to it.

Danger!

The Magicians were holding something, it looked sharp.

The head droid raised his arm, readying us to release our beams should his arm come down in a single clunk.

But something seemed out of place.

These Magicians could barely walk, how could they possibly harm us with a weapon this visibly flimsy and inferior?

The item in question was soon planted onto the surface: it was a small pole with some sort of fabric attached to it.

Was it a bomb, a peace offering or some sort of random decoration?

This kind of odd behaviour continued until they finally picked up some rocks, returned to their ship and eventually disappeared into the skies near-silently.

The M-ians were signalled to stop charging their eye beams. Edelweiss closed her eyes and the intense pain she was feeling began to subside. When she opened them again, everyone had gathered around and over the object left by the Magicians.

It appeared to display stars.

Stripes and stars.

Whatever this meant, one thing was sure: they came twice and they would come again.

He’d been in laboratories before, but nothing like this. For one thing, this wasn’t a laboratory. It was in fact The Sky Council’s meeting room complete with reverse-dome-shaped table, chair balls and the high-powered telescope used to take note of new lunar developments. All that was missing was The Council itself.

Oddly nervous, Krepp slowly approached the telescope with the intention of looking through it and finally seeing the moons. That intention soon gave way to the action itself and just like that, Krepp was face to face with that which had ruled over him from the day of his birth. The moons were inside him and he loved them. He knew that now. He was home, he was happy, he was in love. This is what his entire life had been building up to and it had all been worth it. They were so beautiful: so peaceful, so round, so red. Just as he’d pictured them, more round even. He could hear wet sounds all around him but nothing could ever prove more worthy than this moment and he wasn’t going to let anything, not even a sound, get in the way of his eternal happiness.

“That smell again…”, he thought.

Perhaps he should allow his surroundings a second of his time, after all, he could always look back at his moons whenever he pleased now he was here. Reluctantly, Krepp looked away from the eye-piece and turned back to the table which, to his surprise, was not quite as bare as he recalled. Sitting all around was The Sky Council. At least, what looked like The Sky Council. It was strange, Krepp was surrounded by councilmen and yet the room still felt empty somehow.

The members of The Sky Council looked like wet statues: they were near-static, their skins had a silver shine to them and they were dripping with what could only be described as grey things.

“You’re not The Sky Council.”, Krepp said bluntly.

Suddenly, at the center of the table, a silver shape began to materialize. Like a large, bubbling grey tear at first, it soon started taking on a more familiar form.

“Chief Skyman…”

“No Krepp, I am not The Chief Skyman. But then, you already know that.”, replied the entity.

“Who are you?”

“I am The Chief Skyman. I am The Sky Council. I am a vessel through which your world fuses with mine.”

“I don’t understand your talkings.”

“I believe you know me under another name: Expanseon?”

Krepp made no attempt to hide his confusion. As the entity noticed the drool trickling down Krepp’s chin, it spoke again.

“I have come to merge. But only with true believers. Then, and only then, will the process be complete and my work will be done. Only then will the moons take me back into their rocky bosom.”

“Why am I here?”

“You are the last. You are a true believer and your soul will serve us, and the moons, well.”

Without a word, Krepp climbed over the table and was now facing the entity.

“Take it back. You can’t speak for the moons. That’s not allowed.”

The entity smiled proudly, even as Krepp attempted to break its neck. It not being fully solid or fully liquid, it could not be brutalized in this way. Not knowing what to do, scared, Krepp started to run back to the hole but it was too late: it had already closed in on itself. Lost and confused, Krepp was now attempting to snap his own neck but in vain. The entity was now merging with the other entities around the table to form one large silver ball which started floating quietly towards a panicking Krepp.

“Leave me… leave me alone. This is wrong, this is all wrong!”

An otherworldly voice, like a dozen voices all speaking at once through a thin metallic shell, now emanated from the faceless shape, booming around the room.

“Be not afraid, believer, we mean you no harm. This is, and has always been, your purpose. Accept your fate and your people’s fate, Krepp, this is why the moons sent us.”

“The moons… sent you?”, Krepp asked sheepishly, looking up at the ball.

“That’s right. And now, the moons are ready for you. For us.”

His initial fears withering away with every passing second, Krepp finally understood. The moons were never getting closer: we were getting closer to them all along. Expanseon was a gateway, a force pulling us in.

“I am ready.”, Krepp said, “Take me to the moons.”

Little by little, the ball entered Krepp.

Short flashes of Ham and Shp naked peppered his mind as his body, his soul and everything else gradually merged into the Expanseon. It was an almost instantaneous ceremony.

In the blink of an eye: Krepp was no more.

An immense earthquake followed, shaking the entire planet and killing most of its population, the Expanseon had finally wrapped itself around the entirety of NeOrion’s core. Acting as some sort of gravitational plug, The Observatorium and its pole started pulling NeOrion closer to the moons. The Expanseon ball which contained what once was Krepp among others had launched itself accross the skies forming a direct link between the planet and its lunar relatives. The growing heat and the change in mass crushing the last of the NeOrionians, it was not long before fire took over the entire planet.

NeOrion was no more.

Meanwhile, on a nearby planet, a young-ling awoke from her slumber and approached a nearby window. This being an underwater planet, the window was made of water. Her male parent had just swam into the room after feeling an unexpected wave.

“Father?”, the young-ling asked, “What’s that up there?”

“Those are the moons, my child, the red moons. They protect us.”

“Why are there more now?”

“It is not for us to understand, young one. The red moons have their way.”

He felt so light as he finally stepped onto the dome, it was like flying but on the ground.

The Observatorium was so high up that Krepp felt as if he’d travelled to another planet altogether. All around him was sky: quiet, peaceful sky.

It was like FLYING.

What a feeling. There was something unique, religious about this place. Krepp understood The Sky Council’s solitude and, for a moment, he hesitated. Would the moons approve of his rebellious actions? Would he be punished for his disobedience? No. He was meant to make it to the Observatorium. His presence was no accident. If he had made the moons angry, surely they would have reacted by now. Taking a breath, he entered the dome.

Luckily it wasn’t locked but then again, why would it be?

Why would there be a lock?

Why would it be closed?

Why would it be open?

Krepp felt light-headed. He wasn’t thinking straight. It was as if he had changed, somehow.

The Observatorium walls were humid and soft. It was like entering a long-forgotten underground cave with a smell like no other and a taste salty enough to give the tongue something to think about. Krepp had never felt anything like it. There was little to no light source to speak of as he walked down that long, seemingly endless, corridor and not a sound. There was no such peace anywhere else on NeOrion, Krepp was sure of it. Could it be that he had finally found his home? His nest?

His womb?

No sooner had that thought entered his head that he heard a wet, ambiguous sound coming from the entrance he’d just penetrated. He promptly turned around to find that the entrance in question had been replaced by more wall: he was locked in.

“No matter. The moons have their way.”, he thought.

Krepp finally reached the end of the corridor and, to his surprise, he found no door, no branching path, nothing. Only that smell, getting stronger and stronger. Not so strong that it could be called overpowering but certainly impressive. It had a near hypnotic quality which both attracted and repulsed Krepp. Just then, a hole opened up in front of him: the wall was literally pulsating open before his eyes.

What a sight.

Over the hole was a delicate, transparent film.

Salivus. He’d recognize it anywhere.

What was lying beyond this sticky portal? What did it all mean?

Without hesitation, he stepped through.

Look out for Chapter VI where Krepp’s adventure finally concludes on Wednesday 29/08/12

Higher than any other construction on NeOrion, The Observatorium looked down on the physical and up at the spiritual unknown. Like a gateway between two worlds, its position ensured a clear view of both the red moons and their loyal subjects below. The Observatorium stood on top of a pole, its roots branching out deep below the ground like thousands and thousands of very hard tentacles.

“Oh Ham, how I miss you.”

The pole was made of a rare metal called Expanseon, a metal born out of a meteorite which plummeted on NeOrion several centuries prior. It arrived on the planet in a thick liquid sphere under a near impenetrable layer of space rock. At first, the new element was feared as those who came in direct contact with it would find themselves engulfed by it instantly: it fed on them. And that’s what it was doing below the surface, feeding and feeding, slowly wrapping itself around the planet’s core. The NeOrionians learned to solidify and control Expanseon over time by starving it and then shaping it with wooden pieces of wood, made of wood. This is how the pole was achieved.

With wood.

Krepp was remembering The Observatorium’s history as he flew his law-pod higher and higher through the schlouds. The moons had sent us this gift, this alien technology which in turn we used to look back at them. Maybe Expanseon was their way of warning us, maybe this was their plan all along…

Krepp’s law-pod was finally over the schlouds, level with the rotating turett. The Observatorium indeed rested on the pole but the dome-shaped location was also mobile in that it could spin around on itself, giving us a more complete understanding of the moons’ circumference.

“Beautiful.”

Krepp was moved by the sight of this shining, sparkling monument. It was a true symbol of the moons’ unlimited power and he was, for the first time in his life, well and truly happy. As he landed his law-pod over the dome, he couldn’t help but think that he would be the first NeOrionian to venture up the pole in centuries. The Sky Council had lived in complete isolation ever since it was founded in order to preserve the sanctity of The Observatorium. But with these new moon developments, Krepp felt drawn to that place. The moons were calling him, and he would answer them.

Krepp’s earvision tablet vibrated, but he had been avoiding all calls from that morning onwards. He should have checked the bubblepod’s viscosity levels beforehand: the vibrations were not doing the flight any favours and Krepp could not afford a pop at this point in time.

He had to answer it.

His palm nearly on the tablet receiver pad, Krepp notices something in the bubblepod’s reflector. It was a blinking bubblepod. This was not a good thing. The authorities were after him and he had to lose them, but how?

The earvision tablet still vibrating, Krepp suddenly got an idea. Pushing down on the accelerator, he flew the pod faster than ever before. The blinking law-pod was close behind, moving closer and closer the more salivus Krepp’s trembling pod was excreting. Forcibly freeing himself from the safety magma holding him seated in the pod, Krepp assumed a crouching position before letting go of the accelerator suddenly. Seeing Krepp stop all of a sudden, the law-roaches applied the brakes in their blinking pod. No sooner did they stop close to the pod ahead than its bubble popped and Krepp leaped out of it landing through their own pod. Promptly and without hesitation, Krepp snapped their necks before restarting the law-pod, which had instantly re-bubbled, and flying off into the distance.

Was this the beginning? Was this the end?

Something in between?

Krepp’s mind was racing.

He knew more pods would come and this time, luck might not be on his side. Swallowing the last of the law-roaches, he soon looked up to see the giant pole leading up to The Observatorium.

Their bodies now one, it all started to make sense. Krepp suddenly knew what he had to do and how to do it. Noticing Krepp’s shrinking interest, Ham looked up at him with concern.

– “Where are you, Krepp?”

– “I’m here.”

– “No. Not all of you.”

– “I’m sorry. It’s the moons…”

– “Oh. Them…”

Ham enters Krepp.

– “I’ll take your mind off those silly moons.” She said, her tentacles flapping from side to side.

– “Don’t say that…”

– “It’s true! And to think some people actually believe we need them…”

– “Don’t…”

– “Where’s the science behind that? That’s what I wanna know!”

– “Please…”

– “Give me any evidence that…”

Climaxing despite his efforts, Krepp snaps Ham’s neck.

“What has happened to us all?”, he thought, “Where are our values? Have we forgotten what the moons did for us? Giving us life, giving us light?”. As Krepp stood up, Ham’s lifeless body promptly pulled out of him and fell near the bed, the tentacles still flapping up and down. Looking out the window, Krepp could see the moons, the sound of the tentacles still resonating against the solid floor behind him.